Taranaki🗻, Vivien👩🏽, Erwin👨🏽 and the Kakaramea Farm🐄🐄🐄

On Monday, March 27th, our journey continued south to Taranaki by bus. After about an hour of driving, we had to stop in the middle of nowhere because the bus engine overheated. 😱 Steffi felt almost at home because she knows these problems all too well from her beloved Corsa. 😜

In Patea, a small town, Vivien (former neighbor of Conny) picked us up at her dairy farm. She has been living in New Zealand for 3 years now and in Kakaramea since last June with Erwin, 2 dogs, 4 chickens, and 220 cows.

Unlike a sheep farm, the daily life on a dairy farm is different. They get up at 4 am to milk the cows - every day!! Around 8 am, they have breakfast and then do various tasks, such as feeding calves with delicious pumpkin or moving cows from one pasture to another, etc. There is always work to be done here.

We were allowed to help them a bit around the house, like cleaning windows, vacuuming the car, staining wood, or mowing the lawn.

On his humorous way and with his Swiss German, Erwin took us out and showed us around the farm. 🚜

We were quite impressed by Vivien's cooking skills 😍😍😍. Whether it was meat with vegetables, an Indian dish called 'Easy Butter Chicken with Naan Bread', or vegetable wraps, it was always delicious and we could only stuff ourselves with it. Not to forget the incredibly tasty Peanut Butter Cake 🍮😋😍

On Friday, we got Vivien's car to explore the area. So we headed towards Mount Taranaki, which was only visible for a few minutes that day because of the clouds... When we arrived at the National Park, we took a leisurely hike that passed by the Dawson Waterfalls.

Then we continued to New Plymouth, the next larger city right by the Tasman Sea, where we took a cozy afternoon stroll in the shopping center, as the weather unfortunately did not improve.

On the way back, we made a short stop at the beach. Taranaki is known for its completely black sand beaches, which impressed us a lot.

On the last day, we had the pleasure of watching a rugby game with Erwin. His team won by a landslide. Although we still didn't quite understand the rules of the game, it was still interesting and amusing. 🏉